Getting Together eBook

5. Enemy propaganda to the contrary,
remember that this man is
not a hypocrite.
He is occasionally stupid; he is at times
obstinate; he is frequently
high-handed; and often he would
rather be misunderstood
than explain. But he is neither
tyrannical nor corrupt.
He went into this War because he
felt it his duty to
do so, and not because he coveted any
Teutonic vineyard.

6. Remember that your nation has
done a great deal for this
man’s nation during
the War. Tell him all about it: it will
interest him, because
he did not know.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Practically every one in this world improves on closer
acquaintance. The people with whom we utterly
fail to agree are those with whom we never get into
close touch.

Individual Americans and Britons, when they get together
in one country or the other, usually develope a genuine
mutual liking. As nations, however, their attitude
to one another is too often a distant attitude—­a
distance of some three thousand miles, or the exact
width of the Atlantic Ocean—­and ranges
from a lofty tolerance in good times to unreserved
bickering in bad. Why? Because they are
geographically too far apart. But with the shrinkage
of the earth’s surface produced by the effects
of electricity and steam, that geographical abyss
yawns much less widely than it did. So let us
get together, whether in couples or in millions.
The thing has to be done. No rearrangement of
the world’s affairs after the War can be either
just or equitable or permanent which does not find
Great Britain and the United States of America upon
the same side. What we want is common ground,
and a sound basis of understanding. Our present
basis—­the “Hands-across-the-Sea, Blood-is-thicker-than-Water”
basis—­is sloppy and unstable. Besides,
it profoundly irritates that not inconsiderable section
of the American people which does not happen to be
of British descent.

We can find a better basis than that. What shall
it be? Well, we have certain common ideals which
rest upon no sentimental foundations, but upon the
bedrock of truth and justice. We both believe
in God; in personal liberty; in a Law which shall
be inflexibly just to rich and poor alike. We
both hate tyranny and oppression and intrigue; and
we both love things which are clean, and wholesome,
and of good report. Let us take one common stand
upon these.

We must take certain precautions. We must bear
and forbear. We must forget a good deal that
is past. We must make allowances for point of
view and differences of temperament. And we must
mutually and heroically refrain from utilizing the
unrivalled opportunities for repartee and pettiness
afforded by the possession of a common tongue.